American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC): what the price requires

At today's price, American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~34.3 years. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.

Generated: 2026-07-19 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/AMSC

Headline

FieldValue
TickerAMSC
CompanyAmerican Superconductor Corporation
Current price$34.19/sh
CompositionGrid - North America 58% / Grid - South America 8% / Grid - Asia Pacific 14% / Grid - EMEA 4% / Wind - North America 0% / Wind - South America 0% / Wind - Asia Pacific 16% / Wind - EMEA 0%

What The Price Requires (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basiswhole-company
Operating margin today4.8%
Must persist for34.3y
Multiple paid113x operating income

Solve inputs: computed at a 14.9% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~4.7 years.

Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~15.9 years; the models below use their own rates.

How unusual the bet is: elevated (limited comparison data)

ReferenceValue
sustained it ~10 years at this level15%
implied end-window share0%

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by asset-based and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value, while earnings-power lands below the price. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset0.89x4justifies
Earnings3.18x4expensive
Relative0.93x5justifies
Growth0.92x3justifies

Families that justify the price: Asset, Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 9.1%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=16)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$19.431.76xyesFCF base $0.0B, growth 25% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 9.1%, 7yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$37.220.92xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 74.7x / 76.7x / 78.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 7yr
Relative ValuationRelative$38.680.88xyesP/E 18x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 14.4x / 18.0x / 21.6x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 26.4x
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$32.191.06xyesBV/sh $12.36, ROE (TTM) 24.1%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$52.030.66xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$49.610.69xyesRev $0.3B, growth 30% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 4.1x / 5.1x / 6.2x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$36.600.93xyesEPS $3.05, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=5.74 (Overvalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings——no—
Residual IncomeAsset$47.240.72xyesBV $12.36 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 24.1% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$29.121.17xyes√(22.5 × EPS $3.05 × BVPS $12.36) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$7.064.84xyesEBITDA $0.02B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$6.425.33xyesFCF $18.3M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$2.6013.15xyesSBC-adj FCF $0.00B (FCF $0.02B − SBC $0.02B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$98.410.35xyesEPS $3.05 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset——no—
P/Sales SectorRelative$16.642.05xyesRevenue $0.30B × sector P/S 2.5x
PEG Fair ValueRelative$114.380.30xyesEPS $3.05 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x
Earnings YieldEarnings$32.971.04xyesEPS $3.05 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Solvency

FieldValue
Net cash$132.9m
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)-12.67x (net cash)
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)-10.01x (net cash)
Share count CAGR (dilution)12.0%
Burning cashno

Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

The single most decisive metric in the bull case is the revenue growth rate, because at this stage it is the leading indicator that the demand pools are real before the margins show it. Revenue grew 30% year over year in the most recent quarter to $86.4 million, and management points to "strong order activity across utility, traditional energy, data center, wind and defense markets" setting up continued growth. For a company whose price is built on future scale, accelerating top-line growth across multiple independent end markets is the evidence that the company is selling into structural demand rather than a single lumpy contract.

The demand backdrop is the kind that does not turn off quickly. The filing describes a grid where "the integration of distributed energy resources, automation, and bidirectional power flows" creates "a critical need for more accurate, dynamic, and resilient grid systems," and notes the rapid growth of data centers projected to more than double their share of electricity demand. AMSC's grid products sit directly in that need: as renewables, electrification, and data-center load strain an aging grid, the systems that keep voltage stable and power flowing become essential infrastructure rather than discretionary spend. The wind segment adds a second leg, letting clients "customize turbine designs specifically tailored to local markets while providing ongoing access to field services support," which builds a recurring service relationship on top of the equipment sale.

The balance sheet gives the company the runway to grow into the opportunity. AMSC holds roughly $133 million in net cash against almost no debt, a position that lets it fund working capital for larger contracts and absorb the lumpiness of a project business without raising money under pressure. The most recent quarter also beat handily, with EPS of $0.30 against a $0.19 forecast, the kind of upside surprise that signals operating leverage starting to appear as revenue scales. The bull case is that a cash-rich company with 30% growth, sitting in front of grid modernization and data-center power demand, is early in a long runway.

Bear Case

The disconnect is qualitative before it is numerical: AMSC is a small, project-driven hardware company being priced as if it were a high-margin compounder, and the margin is not there yet. Operating margin runs about 4%, which is thin for any business and especially thin for one carrying a rich valuation. The price is paying a very high multiple of today's operating income, and that only makes sense if the margin expands dramatically as revenue grows. The bear case is that hardware businesses with lumpy project revenue and government and utility customers rarely sustain the kind of margin leap the price assumes, and a single soft quarter in a thin-margin business swings the picture hard.

The numbers behind the disconnect are stark. At the current price the market is paying on the order of a hundred-plus times company-wide operating income, an extreme multiple that implies growth holding at its self-funding ceiling for decades, far longer than the roughly 15% of comparable fast-growers that have sustained such a pace for even ten years. That is the most elevated end of the scale. It does not mean the company is bad; it means the price has already credited an exceptionally long and smooth runway, and the burden of proof sits entirely on execution that has barely begun to show in the margin line. The earnings-power lens reads the price as expensive precisely because there are so few current earnings to capitalize.

The structural risks compound the valuation risk. AMSC's revenue depends on a concentrated set of utility, government, and commercial customers whose order timing it does not control, and project businesses of this kind are exposed to contract slippage, where collectability is assessed on a case-by-case basis when "it is determined that collectability of any portion of the contract value is not probable." The defense and data-center demand the bull cites is real but episodic, arriving as large orders that can swing a quarter in either direction. For a company priced for decades of compounding, the combination of thin margins, lumpy revenue, and customer concentration means the gap between the story and the trailing financials is the whole risk, and the price leaves almost no room for the execution to disappoint.

Valuation

The defining feature of AMSC's valuation is the distance between the price and current earnings power. The company earns only about a 4% operating margin today, so the price works out to an extreme multiple of company-wide operating income, on the order of a hundred-plus times. Inverting that, the price implies growth holding at its self-funding ceiling for a very long horizon, decades rather than years, a path only a small fraction of fast-growing companies have ever sustained. This is the most elevated end of the scale, and the honest read is that the price is a bet on a long, smooth scaling of a business that is currently small and thinly profitable.

The methods we use to triangulate are mixed, which keeps this from being a one-sided overvaluation call. The asset-value, relative-multiple, and forward-growth lenses each find support for the price, while the earnings-power lens, capitalizing today's slim operating earnings, reads it as expensive. So the price is not floating entirely free of fundamentals; the asset base and the growth trajectory carry part of it. But the earnings-power dissent is the load-bearing caveat: it says that almost none of the current valuation is justified by what the company earns right now, and the gap has to be closed by the margin expansion the bull case promises. This is a growth-and-asset story whose central question is whether the thin margin scales.

Solvency is the reassuring part and belongs in the close, because it is the one place the company is unambiguously strong. AMSC holds roughly $133 million in net cash against negligible debt, so there is no leverage risk and no financing pressure; the balance sheet can fund working capital for larger contracts and weather the lumpiness of a project business. That cash is the real floor under the downside, and it is what lets the company keep investing into the grid and data-center demand without raising money on bad terms. The decisive fact is not the growth rate; it is that the price has already paid for decades of profitable scaling, and the margin line is where that thesis will be proven or broken.

Catalysts

The most recent print was a clear beat that the growth story needed. Fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 revenue rose 30% year over year to $86.4 million from $66.7 million, and EPS of $0.30 came in well above the $0.19 forecast, with growth driven by both the grid and wind segments. For a company priced on future scale, a 30% revenue increase paired with an earnings surprise is the kind of result that keeps the long runway credible, because it shows the demand converting to both revenue and profit rather than revenue alone.

The forward catalysts are the order pools management has flagged. The company points to strong order activity across utility, traditional energy, data center, wind, and defense markets as the setup for continued growth in fiscal 2026. Each of those is a distinct demand driver: grid modernization and data-center power on the utility side, and turbine programs on the wind side. The watch list is straightforward and tied directly to the valuation: whether order intake keeps broadening across those markets, and, most importantly, whether operating margin finally expands as revenue scales, since that margin step-up is the single thing the price most needs to see.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Grid / Wind (reported)

Methodology Note

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

AMSC Q4 FY2026 results, 8-K · AMSC Q4 FY2026 earnings call, 2026

View the full interactive AMSC report on boothcheck